Robinson for helpful comments and conver sations. I am also indebted to the faculties of the Quinnipiac University School of Law and the Yale Law School, who provided me with homes while this work was in progress. This Article would not have been possible without Risa Goluboff, my partner in all things. It is dedicated to my grandfather, Henry Schragger, Esq. (1906-2001), who taught me the dignity of the practice of law.
A B STR ACT. This Essay considers the historic weakness of the American mayoralty and recent reform efforts designed to strengthen it. The mayoralty's weakness has two grounds. First, the office's lack of power is a product of elite skepticism of urban democracy. That skepticism manifested itself in Progressive Era reforms that almost entirely eliminated the mayor's office in favor of a city council and professional city manager; the mayoralty continues to be a ceremonial office in most small-and medium-sized cities. Second, the mayoralty's weakness is a result of a federal system that devalues city-and, by extension, mayoral power. American-style federalism privileges regional governments rather than local ones; states, not cities, are the salient sites for constitutionally protected "local" governance. This structural fact has political consequences. The city's limited capacity to make effective policy reinforces the parochialism of its leaders; their parochialism, in turn, reinforces the city's subordinate status. The challenge for urban reformers is to alter this "constitutional" weakness of the mayoralty. I argue that the strong mayoralty is a potential instrument for democratic self-government to the extent that it is able to amass power on behalf of the city.
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